lekkerwijn

When I first moved to DC in 2001, I used to love to go to the Burro Grill in Dupont.

We had yet another delightful meal last night at Cafe du Parc. I don't know how long they've been doing this, but you can now get three courses price fixe $34. My husband had the french onion soup, mussels and frites, and the baba au rum. I had the cauliflower soup, lobster consomme with poached shrimp (yes two soups, but it was a cold yucky night), and the macaron. Accompanied by a Stella and a glass of Sancerre respectively. Food was all very good, mussels and onion soup classic and delicious. But two things were a little annoying. I thought consomme was basically clear, the lobster consomme was very flavorful but not clear. Also, the chocolate macaron was served with canned mandarin oranges not tangerines as the menu said. I liked the tangerine sorbet, but I think simply infusing the ganache filling of the macaron with some orange rind would have done the trick. The mandarin ornage slices detracted from the dish. The evening's entertainment were the people at the tables next to us. On our right we have a some clearly connected people gossiping about a well known polictical pundit and various new cabinet appointees with their "tax naivete". On our left, a tourist family talking about their ambitious site seeing plans and whose young son ordered the crab ravioli and substituted the bed of spinach it is normally served upon with mashed potatoes. I give credit to the waitress who did not flinch at the odd request and valiantly tried to find an acceptable substitute for tomato sauch for the other child's pasta.

Stopped in for a quick lunch today with my sister. It was my first time upstairs and it is way nicer up there than on the first floor. Place was packed at 12:15. We shared the two roll and three roll lunch special- spicey tuna, spicey scallop, eel and avocado, christmas and mickey rolls. For whatever reason, two of the five rolls were cold (like when you get premade sushi from the grocery store). We were in a rush or I would have sent them back to have fresh ones made. Otherwise it was very acceptable, quick and reasonably priced. I am curious to see what the food will be like at the Thai place opening up next door.

For reasons that defy a simple explanation, my husband and I had dinner last night at the Chesapeake Grill inside the Crystal City Hyatt. When we read the website and saw that it had been named "Best of the Best" multiple times by Phyllis Richman at the Taste of Arlington Food Show, we knew it was going to be an experience. Up 18 stories and overlooking the river and national airport, it lives up to the reputation of DC area restaurants with a great view. As we got off of the elevator, we were relieved to find that a handful of guests were dining. (We were quite worried we would be alone.) Our meals began with a glass of Cava for me and a glass of Shiraz for my husband. We were also served a warm bread basket. It contained both sour dough and rye bread. It appeared to be nuked sandwich bread. That came along with butter, pesto, and olive oil. None of which tasted particularly fresh but wasn't bad. To start, I had the organic mixed greens with pomegranate vinaigrette, and my husband had the hearts of romaine. My salad was doused in a pinkish colored oil. It seemed they had forgotten to shake the bottle of vinaigrette. The hearts of romaine were dressed with a commercial quality Caesar dressing. Both were served on ice cold, dewy plates. For dinner I had the house specialty- 98% crab crab cakes. Perfectly ice-cream scooped, they were broiled and served with fingerling potatoes and grilled asparagus. The crab cakes had more mayo than would qualify them as “98% crab” by weight or volume which makes me think they actually meant the crab portion of the crab cake was 98% crab and 2% “other”. They were nothing special, they tasted fine. The asparagus wasn’t over cooked. This plate was by far the best food we were served that night. In contrast, my husband’s meal was the worst thing we had all night. He got the sundried tomato crusted halibut, served with buttermilk polenta and a spinach and wild mushroom hash. I thought the fish dish sounded gross when he ordered it and it looked even nastier when it arrived. The fish was cooked beyond the point of being classified as overcooked. As Tom Colicchio would say “they did not respect the ingredient”. The polenta was gummy and had a texture that reminded me of those pillows filled with little silicone beads. All of their desserts except for the ice cream and sorbet are made in house. We shared the flourless chocolate cake. It came ice cold and rock hard with 3 half-dollar sized polka dots of Hershey’s strawberry syrup and a teaspoon sized dollop of whipped topping with three tiny blueberries on top of it. It reminded me of what is served at a wedding or Bar Mitzvah when they need to find an fancy sounding Kosher pareve dessert. The service was friendly and attentive. For example, when our appetizers arrived our waiter took the pepper mill from the empty table next to us and offered freshly ground pepper for our salads. His commentary on the difficulty of assessing which customers he needs to card was hilarious. Our table had a stunning view of Arlington, Alexandria and Reagan which added to the already romantic ambiance. It is probably safe to assume that the food we were served is the same as what they serve at the events hosted there. It both looked and tasted like the worst kind of corporate banquet food. With tax and tip: $115. Conclusion: The perfect restaurant to take your professional escort when you don't want your wife to know you are not actually on a business trip and you want to be sure you won't run into anyone you know.

Brian Wansink does the greatest food studies! His work on the never ending bowl of soup was pure genious. His work also inspired the 100 calorie pack.

Burger King.

I am pretty sure that the NOP regs do not exlcude large agribusiness from producing organic products. I'm not defending Horizon, but I have also been to a small, local, organic dairy farm that sells their milk to Horizon. My understanding from speaking to the farmer was that was the only way to have a profitable business. He was also incapable of producing a sufficient volume of milk to have the economies of scale necessary to process the milk himself and sell it directly to consumers at a price consumers were willing to pay.

I've asked this question as well. It would seem that aside from taking a cooking class from her, no one has tried her food before. But maybe some people have heard her yelling "hootie-hoo" in a Whole Foods . . .

Your comment made me remember one of the best parts of their conversation. They went to Palena as a compromise. He had already gone bird watching with her earlier in the day, and had clearly not enjoyed it. Dinner at Palena was something special they were doing for him. FWIW, he wasn't the one who complained and wanted to leave. It was his bird-watching companion who wasn't willing to wait 50 minutes for the boring roast chicken.

If they really judged the show on the current challenge they would judge the food blindly without knowing who made it. But then you couldn't do fun things like judge people's food based on the personality, team spirit and ability to make good tv.

Reading Seitsema's and Kliman's chats lately, there has been much discussion about keeping restaurant web sites up-to-date. Last night at the cafe we overheard a conversation that exemplifies how important it is to update menus on the web. We got to Palena at literally 5:37 and were faced with a one hour wait, that turned into closer to an hour and a half. Not a big deal to us, we walked around the neighborhood and then got a drink at the bar. BTW- if anyone is ever looking for fresh duck fat, that little grocery store (not the organic one) in the strip mall a few doors down from Dino has it! But the long wait clearly disgruntled the couple who were ultimately seated next to us. They sat down and looked at the cafe menu and were very upset by the "boring and un-creative" food on the menu. One would have thought that during their nearly two hour wait they would have looked at the menu. To quote "cheeseburgers, roasted chicken and minnestrone!?!? I can make this at home." (uh, yeah right) They were ready to get up and leave. Then they order the roast chicken and when informed it would take nearly an hour, they were again ready to get up and leave. They complained to the waitress that the menu offerings weren't as "interesting" as they were expecting. I give her a lot of credit because she offered them several selections that they could order ala carte off of the tasting menu all of which sounded wonderful and interesting to me. They were still unhappy and again the female diner suggested that they leave. Ultimately, they ordered the "boring" cheeseburgers and the fry plate. While waiting for their food they both continued to bitch and moan about the menu and how disappointed they were. Their food came and they literally almost licked their plates clean and ate every drop including dessert. But it was clear from listening to them that they never planned to return because they were still so pissed about being tricked by the online menu. Oh well. More seats for the rest of us.

A friend very generously took us for dinner last night at Morton's. It only made us more excited for our dinner at Ray's on Sunday night.

Split Pea and Vegetable Soup today. Long line of ladies at about 11:30 am that is already out the door. Female Customer: I'd like a vegetarian platter and a split pea soup, please. Kostas: You vegetarian? FC: No sir, I am not. Kostas: Ok! Good! I got some very nice lamb for you!

Carla "the tortise" is a great foil to Stefan "the hare". She's also fun to watch. They say she is from DC and she talks about eating in DC. But just out of curiousity, has anyone on this board ever eaten her food or heard of her work before she got on the show? How do we get her to start cooking for us?

I just got back from tea (or what they call the pastry buffet) in the Empress Lounge at the Mandarin. It is really a pastry buffet more than what you might think of as a traditional tea. They only have three sandwich selections which are the weakest of their offerings- egg and watercress, smoked salmon and cucumber and curried chicken. They also had warm (but clearly not fresh out of the oven) scones with strawberry jam , lemon curd and clotted cream. I have a bit of a cream tea obsession following a vacation in Cornwall a couple years ago. Their clotted cream was more like a whipped cream enriched with butter rather than the gooey, sweet Cornish variety. Very acceptable given the setting, but still doesn't hold a candle to the real thing. The dessert buffet had an impressive selection of pastries and was attractively displayed. It included a wide range of goodies both fruity and chocolatey. Our favorites included a tartlet with a shortbread base, filled with pastry cream and topped with raspberries (also available with blackberries or blueberries), chocolate mousse domes, and a custard with mango curd. Also available, a chocolate fountain with various goodies to dip in it, chocolate truffles and some cookies that looked like they came out of a costco container. Tea selection is expansive and they also have a variety of french press coffees or cocktails that you can get with the buffet instead of tea. Or for a $5 up charge, you can get tea/coffee and a cocktail. It might be a tight economy, but the place was packed. As other have said, its not cheap at $32 per person. But it is all-you-can-eat and some of those ladies were making multiple trips to the buffet. The desserts were very good, but not excellent. For comparison- I'd say a step above what you'd get at the Bellagio Buffet. Biggest complaint- the tea came out at a rather tepid temperature. I was there celebrating a friend's birthday. Its fun to get dressed up on a Saturday afternoon for calorie splurge in a luxurious setting. We both agreed we are going to need to look for excuses to go back.

Agreed, that is a little treasure and one of Sineann's best. I am pretty sure it is normally only sold in Sineann's tasting room, which is where we bought ours.

They are really great! IMHO, I think they are better than just about anywhere else in the area. Justin's cakes also rock.

Check out Burros' blog today in the NYTimes Obamas Bring Their Chicago Chef to the White House .

We did a class at Artisan Confectioner. We had a great time and thought it was also a good value.

Not next Thursday . . . WaPo GOG says they are giving out free cupcakes on 1/15 to the first 500 customers

Penn Quarter Living post today says that the new Tangysweet on 7th street is giving out free frozen yogurt this afternoon.

Costco in Pentagon City has had "fresh" (as in not frozen) Golden's brand latkes in 24 packs for about $6 for the past few weeks. We've tried them and they are actually pretty good. 24 latkes is a lot, but they freeze really well. Of note as well, they have been carrying a number of prepackaged, not frozen Kosher stuff lately: stuffed cabbage, pastrami, whole salamis.

If I remember correctly they have a very strict policy about no filming and no pictures inside any of their stores. My parents live in Rochester and are big Top Chef fans, they had no clue that the show was being filmed there over the summer. Its kind of a small town and I can imagine that a show filming in one of the Wegmans would have been a big news story there.

This may be a little late in the game, but I love Willy's Wine Bar. http://www.williswinebar.com/

The new Tangysweet and their bakery Red Velvet are supposed to open this week. Corner of 7th and E.